50 Tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema by Russ Andrews

50 TIPS TO GET THE BEST FROM YOUR HI-FI & HOME CINEMA

50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema Russ Andrews 15

Welcome to our 50 Top Tips Guide We thought it would be a great idea to gather together some of the tips Russ has published, over the years, into one handy publication. Throughout the following pages, you’ll find a mixture of Russ’s top tips and other tips we’ve come across – or have been told by our customers – which we’ve found particularly useful when setting up our own systems. Many of them offer a completely free way of improving the performance of your system. While we can’t guarantee that in every case they will improve your sound quality – everyone’s set-up is unique to them – you really have nothing to lose by trying them. If you have any questions, need any advice, or want to offer suggestions, contact us online or on the number below. Happy experimenting!

Call us on 0845 345 1550

or visit www.russandrews.com for lots more information and tips

So what makes us qualified to offer advice? If you don’t know Russ’s reputation in the Hi-Fi industry, then you may well be sceptical of our approach to achieving truly enjoyable music and movies. Why should you take our advice? That’s a very good question that demands a convincing answer! Russ’s thirty plus years experience in the industry, much of it spent in fundamental research and development work, has given him an unmatched appreciation of how a Hi-Fi system works as a whole within its environment. Russ’s pioneering research into the effect

that mains quality has on Hi-Fi systems led to development of the world’s first Hi-Fi mains cable back in 1986; today, his continual R&D ensures we’re still leading the field. The philosophy behind Russ Andrews Accessories is to provide enthusiasts with products that really work to improve sound quality and to back this up with plenty of information and excellent customer service. We are here to help you achieve real musical pleasure from your system. Exclusive UK

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Get much more from your CDs and DVDs

Burning love - If you have a CD that is difficult to play or skips, you may be able to create a drastic improvement by burning a copy on your computer. The key point here is to select ‘Use Error Correction’ in the preferences of your recording software. Ensure that the disc being copied is cleaned, and the disc that is being burned is cleaned too. Our ReVeel® and ReleeS® CD enhancers are perfect. ReVeel® and ReleeS® are avilable from us at www.russandsrews.com/5420

Freeze your discs – We’ve found that Deep Cryogenic Treatment (DCT) is a great way to improve the sound from your CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs but you can also achieve a similar effect by putting them in your home freezer. Place the discs in the freezer without the paper booklet. Leave them in there for 72 hours and then transfer them into the fridge and remove them 24 hours later to come gradually back up to room temperature. You should notice improvements straight away, ranging from subtle to significant changes depending on the disc.

That’s the Spirit

If you’re a fan of vinyl as your main source you’ll be aware of how important it is for the platter to be level. But this is also important to owners of CD/DVD players too. If the component isn’t level, its performance can be negatively affected by the laser struggling to track the disc correctly. Have a look in the toolbox, and search out a small spirit level. Check the levels in both directions and adjust as necessary until the player is perfectly level.

turn me off

Many CD players, and some AV components, have the facility to turn the display off. If you can cope with the lack of information, this is well worth doing. The display itself emits noise into the component so switching it off can improve clarity.

CD or not CD? – When connecting sources such as a CD player to your amp, it is worth testing the differences between inputs. The natural thing to do is to plug the CD into the CD input, but this is not always the best connection. The old Creek 4140, for example, sounded better with the CD plugged into the Tuner input! Don’t plug your CD player into the phono input though - that’s for turntables only!

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The ea the better an l be. One r l pl e a disc pictures wi s is the lase ere’s a sim i h d t h t an nd ts sound t that affec r the disc a e n v e o pen – t m e h l e arker e pen g lig ce this. n m i r t e n t e t u d sca un th ma n help re ck per lat edge. R D or a l b way to a ith a f urself CD/DV Get yo erably one w ge of your ee times to p o r d f pre o or th d the e olid’. P aroun -ray disc tw e black is ‘s r and e Blu r p la y sure th make ck into you ifference! it ba el at the d marv 50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema Russ Andrews 3

Top Tips for Turntables 7

Solid foundations - Every turntable needs a strong, rigid plinth or the sound will be soft, soggy and unfocussed. Check the corner joints to make sure there is no movement due to dried-out glue. If it has a plastic plinth, fill the cavities between the stiffening struts with ‘Plastic Padding’ body filler. This will both stiffen it and dampen its resonances.

Keep it clean – The stylus is renowned as a dust and dirt collector, so make sure you clean it on a regular basis for best performance. Fluff is easily blown or brushed off, but mould release agent in the record groove builds up on the stylus into a hard black lump that causes mistracking. The black gunge is not easily removed because very few cleaners dissolve it. Alcohol and those snazzy little vibrating cleaners have no effect on it.

Russ Andrews TipTonic has been specially formulated to remove this and is perfect for gently cleaning the stylus tip. Available from us at www.russandrews.com/5068

Keep on track - Make a regular check on the tracking weight and the anti-skate adjustments on your tone-arm. Although you set these when you first get a turntable, with use they can become off-set, so it’s worth consulting the manufacturers handbook again and checking that the settings are still correct. 4 Russ Andrews 50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema

Sensitive nature - Try to avoid placing your turntable near to your speakers as it can be very sensitive to the sound they produce, which can muddy the sound and create feedback.

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Our Bubble Levels shown on the turntable above do the job efficiently and effectively. www.russandrews.com/5021

Revamp your Amp 12

Turn on, tune in - Leave your equipment* switched on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (except during electrical storms, of course, when you should unplug it from the mains, and also unplug TV and FM aerial leads!). The sound from your system will take at least a week to settle down and stop changing. If, subsequently, you turn any part of it off, even for a few minutes, expect it to need 24 hours to settle again. The improvements in smoothness, sweetness and musicality are enormous. Bass may appear to drop half an octave and

improve in clarity. The whole sound will be more relaxed and listenable. It will also reduce the incidence of breakdown since turning your system on and off puts enormous stress on the internal components. We appreciate that there is an electricity cost incurred - however we believe that this is offset by the improved performance and reliability! * Amplifiers shouldn’t overheat, unless faulty or badly designed (please note that some amps are designed to run quite hot). We would, however, advise against leaving valve power amps switched on all the time.

Got it taped? – Did you know that the sound from your amplifier can be degraded when interconnects are connected to the ‘Record’ or ‘Tape Out’ circuits? The sound can become really muffled with a lack of ‘life’, information and 3-dimensionality. Some preamps/integrated amps have a ‘Tape Defeat’ switch to prevent this but if yours doesn’t it’s simply a matter of unplugging the leads when you are not recording.

Don’t get rattled – Rattling panels on

equipment can cause nasty signal interference and create a rather harsh and confused sound due to the microphonic nature of the internal components. There are two things you can do to address this. First, make sure all the casework screws are nice and tight. Then, second, use a reasonably heavy item, such as a cloth covered brick placed on top of the component to dampen the vibration (when doing this, check first that there are no vents impeded by doing this and avoid if it does). An even better solution is to use one of our ‘Dampers’, a lightweight, self-adhesive wooden panel which attaches to the top of your component. Its low-mass construction means it can effectively damp the panel without storing any acoustic energy itself. www.russandrews.com/5700

Radio radio...

Boxing Clever - Use your TV set-top

box for radio. If you’re not a fan of DAB and prefer the sound quality of FM, there’s now a real alternative. For £50 or so you can replace your FM tuner with a Freeview or Freesat box for equal to FM quality with better reception. If you can connect your existing box to your TV and Hi-Fi at the same time, you can use the screen to navigate through the stations. Alternatively, use a simple LCD mini TV monitor plugged into the box.

Most boxes of this type will have a digital output – probably optical – that you can connect to an external DAC or Home Cinema processor. We recommend connecting them that way (rather than using the analogue outputs the box may have) for best sound quality. 50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema Russ Andrews 5

Speakers

The exact spot to place your speakers will vary according to the particular space they are in so the key is to follow these general tips and use your own ears and judgement to fine tune and decide what sounds best for you.

Mixed grilles - Take the speaker grilles off... or leave them on! The idea of removing speaker grills to allow a loudspeaker to perform at its best is a well known tip, but one that is sometimes easily forgotten. If your sound is a little bit muddy and lacking in detail, removal of the grilles is a must. But, conversely, if the sound is rather harsh, then it may be worth going against received wisdom and putting the grilles back on, for a warmer, less ‘in your face’ sound. Indeed, some speakers are designed to work this way, so check first before removing them.

Screw-Drivers - Tighten the screws

on speaker drivers. If the sound from your system is sounding a bit unfocussed and slack, try tightening the mounting screws on your speaker drivers. You’ll find the sound will improve all round and especially in a tighter bass. This is worthwhile doing as a regular maintenance task as the drivers do come loose over time.

Positioning your speakers

Open wide - Get those speakers as

wide apart as they will go; the wider the speakers, the wider the soundstage and the more involving the sound. So long as the speakers are no less than 5cm (2”) away from the side walls, you should be fine. Have a listen and if they do sound slightly boomy in the bass, move them further away from the wall a step at a time until you like the sound and the boom has gone. Width of

Sweet spot - Angle the speakers

Middle age spread - On older

speakers with large drivers, the woofers can start to sag due to gravity. To negate this effect, unscrew the drivers and turn them upside down. Don’t for get to screw them back in tightly though! (see tip 17)

Beware Bi-Wire - Think before

bi-wiring – if your speakers are bi-wirable, it is tempting to go that route. Our tests, however, have shown that some amplifiers can find bi-wired speakers more difficult to handle and you can often get results as good as bi-wiring by using a single run of speaker cable: often for lower cost. If you are single-wiring bi-wirable loudspeakers, it’s important to replace the gold-plated links that connect the two sets of binding posts together with proper speaker cable (you only need short ‘jumper’ links). We find that the metal plated links can sound bright and harsh and replacing them with proper speaker cable will give even better sound.

Stuck in the middle - Place your

equipment between the speakers – this minimises the length of speaker cable you need (saving money) and is also the quietest position for the components to be in to minimise acoustic feedback from the speakers (which has a detrimental effect on the rhythm and timing of the music). Preferred speaker placement area

Speaker

back wall (A)

towards the listening position to 0.8 of A A increase the focus and solidity of the image. It gives you a greater ratio of direct to reflected sound too. Place your listening seat in your preferred position and then move it forward and back to find the soundstage’s sweet spot where the image comes into focus giving believable positioning and separation.

6 Russ Andrews 50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema

Chair

Hi-Fi

S Preferred listening area

Speaker

Preferred speaker placement area

1.25 of A

Down to Earth - Metal speaker drivers can be earthed to improve their performance. The results can be both easy to hear and very beneficial; improved clarity, definition, depth in the bass, improved separation between instruments, singer etc. and more three-dimensionality in the soundstage. Not only that but you’ll find the treble should be clearer, sweeter and cleaner. You can test this upgrade fairly easily for yourself without having to modify the drive unit. When you remove the speaker grille, you will find the tweeter(s) and one or more drive units held in with screws. Tackle only the drivers and tweeters with metal bodies (drivers and tweeters that have a plastic chassis do not need earthing so if you have them - lucky you!) Remove one screw from each driver and clean the metal around the screw hole to remove any paint.

Just a phase - Check the phase on

speakers – The standard way for speakers to be wired is ‘in phase’, that is, positive on the amp to positive on the speaker. Check that this is the case and that both speakers are correctly phased. However, there are some circumstances in which reversing the polarity on your speakers can

Strip the end of a piece of earth wire that is long enough to reach your mains socket (you are going to use its earth), make a small loop in the stripped end and refit the driver screw through it so that it makes a good tight connection with the chassis. If there is more than one driver on each speaker, you can earth link them together or run two lengths of wire. Do both speakers and fit 13 amp plugs to the earth wire (using only the big earth pin!) so that you can easily A/B the difference. If you like what you hear, you can make the connection more permanent and hide the earth wire by making the earth connection at the back of the driver and running the earth wire to an extra socket on the back plate next to the usual speaker terminals. KIMBER earth weave is the ultimate, low inductance, low impedance cable to use if you want to do the job properly.

improve the sound, so it’s always worth giving this trick a try. Take the positive wire from the amp and put it in the negative binding post of the speaker, and, likewise, the negative to the positive. Make sure you do the same on both sides. Sit back and listen, comparing to the sound in ‘correct’ phase. Trust your ears: if it sounds better leave it that way, if not, change it back.

Try your speakers upside down! Speakers sounding a bit harsh and lacking in bass? Turn them upside down (assuming they are stand-mounts of course!) OK, they may look slightly odd, but having the bass driver above the tweeter could be just the thing to bring the sound you are looking for.

50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema Russ Andrews 7

Home Cinema best images from your HDTV, the chances are that you’ll need to make adjustments. Out of the box the picture can often be over dynamic, set for shop display with bright lights rather than the normal lighting conditions of a house. This has immediate impact but is neither natural nor easy to watch for any length of time.

Sub Standard – When setting up your home cinema it doesn’t matter where you place the subwoofer does it? Wrong. Although it’s true that the subwoofer is not as directional as the surround speakers, it is still affected by position. Try moving it around the room and listen to the difference. You will probably find by doing this that there will be more definition and detail in the bass in one position rather than others.

Most modern TVs are exceptionally customisable in their settings to enable you to get the perfect balance of sharpness, contrast, brightness, colour, etc.

Most subwoofers also have a crossover adjustment. This enables you to adjust the frequency at which the subwoofer needs to take over from the surround speakers. The easiest way to do this is by ear.

Two ways of adjusting these are :

The best way is to play a movie or music that’s familiar, with the sub turned right down. Now bring the volume of the sub up gradually until you hear the bass come in. Then turn it back just a touch. This should give you the right balance, where the sub naturally takes over from the surround speakers without being overblown.

Picture Perfect – to get the very

1. The free solution – go onto Google and enter the model of your TV along with “set up”. It may take a few minutes of patience, but you should eventually come across an entry from the likes of AV Forums with recommendations for the optimum settings for you to enter.

2. The low cost solution – for a bespoke solution that will allow for your room and lighting conditions, use a calibration disc. These use varying on-screen patterns to fine-tune your picture and will help you achieve the very best from your set. One example is the Spears and Munsil High-Definition Benchmark Blu-ray set up disc, which is well reviewed and great value – a small price for a big improvement. Available from us at: www.russandrews.com/5532

8 Russ Andrews 50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema

28 Clean your screen. A simple but often neglected ‘upgrade’ is to clean your screen on a regular basis. Grease and dust develops on the screen gradually so you don’t always notice how dirty it is. And all that muck creates a ‘fog’ over the screen, reducing image detail. Use a good quality cleaner specifically designed for the task, such as DeoxIt™ Screen Cleaner, and you’ll immediately notice a brighter and clearer picture. Available from us at www.russandrews.com/5441

Size does matter – bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to your choice of flat screen TV. It’s about finding a balance: too big and you are going to be more aware of the pixels; too small and you will miss out on finer detail. So you need to take two things into consideration: the screen size and the viewing distance from the screen. We’ve found two basic formulas that are a good place to start when thinking about screen size one for standard definition and one for HD. When considering the optimum position for your room think about how much you will be viewing each format. HD is great, but if most of your viewing is of TV programmes in standard definition there is no point setting things up for HD pictures.

Screen size

With standard definition, the formula is to be seated no less than 2x the screen size away from the TV, and no more than 5x. So for a 40” screen that would be no less than 80” (7ft) and no more than 200” (17ft). With HD, you should be looking at no less than 1.5x and no more than 4x. In this case, for the same 40” screen that would be no less than 60” (5ft) and no more than 160” (13ft). For most circumstances, the ideal would be a balance between the two so you are not losing out on one format at the cost of the other i.e. no less than x2 and no more than x4. The table below gives examples for some common screen sizes: it‘s easy to try this for yourself with different sized screens in a shop.

SD/HD

37”

1.9m to 4.7m (6’2” to 15’5”)

1.4m to 3.75m (4’8” to 12’4”)

1.9m to 3.75m (6’2” to 12’4”)

40”

2m to 5m (6’8” to 16’8”)

1.5m to 4m (5’ to 13’4”)

2m to 4m (6’8” to 13’4”)

47”

2.4m to 6m (7’10” to 19’7”)

1.8m to 4.8m (5’11” to 15’8”)

2.4m to 4.8m (7’10” to 15’8”)

52”

2.6m to 6.6m (8’8” to 21’8”)

2m to 5.3m (6’6” to 17’4”)

2.6m to 5.3m (8’8” to 17’4”)

50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema Russ Andrews 9

Computer Audio To get the most from your computer audio you need to ensure that both your recordings and playback are optimized for audiophile playback. The following tips are based on using Apple‘s iTunes as this is the most common program used:

Importing CDs into iTunes:

Favourable formats - Make sure

that you are importing your discs in the best possible format. Go into preferences>general > settings > and choose a format for your recording. Apple lossless is fine but has less flexibility for playback on some non-Apple devices. We’d recommend that you choose AIFF or WAV for the best quality: these files take up the most space but are a direct copy of the data on your CDs.

Free samples - iTunes does not change sample rates according to what is being played but rather outputs to a pre-selected rate determined by your operating system. So you may think your lovely new Hi-Res files are being played at 96kHz when in fact the operating system is down-sampling to 44.1kHz. To avoid this you need to get iTunes to do all the Sample Rate Conversion rather than the OS.

To achieve this set the system to run at 96kHz/24bit prior to launching iTunes. Now when you launch iTunes it will reflect the system’s settings and output at 96kHz/24bit. All your music will now be output at this rate, with high res files passing straight through and others upsampled.

Audio Midi Setup can be found in Utilities on a Mac

Error-free - Use error correction

when importing CDs. Make sure you check the ‘Use error correction when reading Audio CDs’ box when importing your discs, for the most accurate data retrieval (see pic above). And don’t forget to clean your discs before ripping them.

ReVeel® and ReleeS® are avilable from us at www.russandsrews.com/5420 10 Russ Andrews 50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema

To do this with a PC, select the audio device you are playing by right-clicking the loudspeaker in the task bar of your computer. Select Properties and you should be given the option to select the sample rate. On a Mac, go to the Audio Midi Setup (in Applications>Utilities) and select the sample of the audio output. Remember that if you are connecting your computer to a DAC, you will need one that can handle high-resolution files to play them back properly.

iTunes playback settings: So you’ve got the best possible recording into your iTunes library, now how do you make sure you get the best playback? There are a number of things you can adjust to maximise playback quality:

Direct approach - To get the best audio output you need to get as direct a signal as possible. iTunes has some settings which are there primarily for a non-audiophile audience, so the first thing to do is switch these off. Open iTunes preferences and turn off ‘Crossfade Songs’, ‘Sound Enhancer’ and ‘Sound Check’. All are superfluous and just interfere with the sound quality. Pump up the volume - Although it has improved dramatically over the years, the iTunes volume is still no replacement for using the control on your amplifier. What level to set the iTunes output at is a matter of trial and error. Try it on full to begin with and then adjust to find a good balance with the amplifier, so you have a sufficient amount of flexibility with the volume level, with no harshness.

Short and sweet -

The input sockets on your equipment can act as aerials for interference when there is nothing plugged into them. Short-circuiting these inputs will resolve the problem bringing both sound and pictures into better focus on your Hi-Fi and Home Cinema.

The simplest way to do this is by inserting our ‘Noise-Reducing Shorties’ into the unused inputs in all your components. Another quick fix for little outlay and a good result!

DAC to basics – The sound card

in your computer is unlikely to be helping to get the very best from your audio files. We’ve found that the best solution is to use a standalone ‘external’ soundcard that connects to your computer by USB. Those with their own external power supply can sound better, too. External soundcards can have analogue or digital outputs or both. Do some research and pick the one that suits your system best. We have a range available from Firestone Audio and M2Tech on www.russandrews.com

Shorties are available from us at www.russandrews.com/5735 50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema Russ Andrews 11

Cables 37

Cables are directional, make sure your cable is going in the right direction

Source

Preamp

Power Amp

Loudspeaker

All our cables have directional arrows on the heatshrinks to indicate which way they should flow, follow the diagram above.

The right direction - Back in the 1970s, Russ discovered that cables are actually directional and that they perform at their best when used in the right direction! Signal flow should follow any directionality arrows, so the arrows on a speaker cable should point away from an amplifier and towards the speakers, for example. If there are no direction arrows, it’s relatively easy to test it for the correct directionality. Test one channel at a time: play a piece of music with the cable running in one direction, then reverse it. Whichever direction sounds the best is the correct direction!

38 Clean sweep

- Most terminations tarnish over time and this will have a dramatic degrading effect on reproduction. Clean all your connections on a regular basis – around four times a year is great. This includes banana plugs, interconnect terminations, binding posts, mains IEC and mains plugs. There are a number of products available to do this but we recommend the DeoxIt™ range as they not only clean but resist the oxidation of the connections after cleaning. DeoxIt™ is available from us at www.russandrews.com/deoxit

12 Russ Andrews 50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema

39 Pole reversal

– unlike a standard IEC, a figure 8 mains socket in equipment has no earth, so the cable can be fitted 2 ways – with correct polarity (live to live, neutral to neutral) or in reverse polarity (live to neutral, neutral to live). On most occasions you will find that you get better performance one way rather than the other, so give it a go with both.

Supports 40 Dust the ticket

– Metal racks and speaker stands can add harshness to the sound due to the material used (tap a stand and it will ring – that’s not what you want interfering with your music!). It is not uncommon for people to fill their stands with sand to address this but that solution adds other problems. We find that high-mass stands and racks store acoustic energy, which can feed back into your equipment, destroying the rhythm and timing. The lighter the stand, the lower the amount of energy is stored, meaning less degradation of your music. So adding sand – high mass – just makes things worse. A better alternative is to use sawdust; the rougher type you get from a pet shop for use as bedding. Pour this into the hollow tubing of racks and stands and it will reduce the ringing and mean less energy is stored.

3 3

A corny solution - Corn

plasters stop cone feet slipping. If your equipment is on cone shaped feet (like our wooden cones) and you find that it has a tendency to move around on your rack, try fitting some small traditional corn plasters for the point of the cone to sit in. If you don’t like the colour you can use a marker pen to change them.

Cone feet are available from us at www.russandrews.com/conefeet

50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema Russ Andrews 13

THE ROOM The room your Hi-Fi or home cinema is placed in will always have an effect on the sound it makes – play a portable radio in different rooms to see how much the sound can vary. There are a number of tricks you can use to get a better performance.

42 Follow the flock

Music and soundtracks can sound harsh in rooms with painted walls, large expanses of glass and bare floors. Adding home furnishings, which reduce sound reflections and echoes, can dramatically improve this:

43 Au naturel

Use wallpaper to limit the sound reflections off the walls, and, for even greater effect, try a wall-hanging. Thick wallpapers of the ‘flock’ type or Anaglypta are best as these surfaces are better at absorption, though any is better than bare plaster walls. Use a good thick lining paper too.

44 Absorb the cost For an alternative to specialist (and expensive) Sound Absorbers or Diffusers, use open bookcases and album storage as the books and records provide both a random and absorbent surface.

14 Russ Andrews 50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema

A good quality wool carpet will have a dramatic effect on improving damping and try to use natural materials in other soft furnishings such as feather cushions and wool and hair upholstery (if on a budget, try to choose hollow-fibre rather than foam).

Stick it down!

Deep bass notes can cause rattles in the room which, once fixed, will bring more clarity and definition to your music and soundtracks. Common culprits are ornaments (use some Blu-Tak to hold these down), window and door frames (draught excluders will help here), bowls and jugs (half-fill them with sand, beads and marbles), Glasses (stand upside down on kitchen roll or doilies). Picture frames can rattle against the wall too, but these can be silenced with Blu-Tack® or self adhesive foam strips.

WARNING! Don’t overdo the damping

Don’t overdo the damping though. It’s all about balance – overdamp the room and it can sound claustrophobic. What you are aiming for is more damping and diffusion in the half of the room where your Hi-Fi sits, and less in the half where you sit. This will minimise reflections whilst creating more of a feeling of space and excitement to the music.

Bookcase Speaker

Listening area Wall hanging

Live End

Hi-Fi Dead End

Speaker

Bookcase Heavy curtains

Clean Earth -

Check all mains and earth connections are tight – over time, all cable connections will loosen, and this is just as much the case with your house wiring as it is with your hi-fi. Loose earth and mains connections will have a detrimental effect on the ultimate performance of you kit, so a once-a-year check is well worth the effort. The easiest task is to check the connections on all of your sockets (Warning! - make sure you turn off the electricity first, and if unsure, consult a qualified electrician). Unscrew the socket faceplates and check that all the wires are connected securely. And whilst you’re at it, it’s worth checking that they are wired with correct polarity – you’d be surprised how many times they are not. Once they’ve all been checked the next thing is to go around the house checking on the earth bonding. Earth bonds are the straps you often find connected to the exposed pipework under your sink.You can often find that these are either loose or corroded, each of which will be compromising the earth. Give them a good clean and make sure the metal they are attached to is clean with no surface contaminants or paint. Re-tighten where necessary.

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50 tips to get the best from your Hi-Fi & Home Cinema Russ Andrews 15

Finally... it’s all about listening! 49

The Sound of Music - When auditioning a new piece of kit, the key is to listen to the music, although that’s not always as simple as it sounds. As enthusiasts we often forget how to listen. We must have forgotten, because non-Hi-Fi enthusiasts do it naturally. They don’t, of course, use Hi-Fi terms to describe what they hear, but they have no difficulty describing it in their own terms.

First of all, you need to throw any preconceptions out regarding reputation, reviews, specs, etc. – they just get in the way of listening openly. Basically, all that matters is how it sounds to you so trust your ears. Rather than focusing on the details, try to take in the overall sound. After all, that’s what you do when you listen to live music and that’s the kind of experience you want to replicate. If you can trick your mind into mentally standing back and listening to the overall sound - the big picture - you’ll hear everything quickly and easily.

Practice listening - Listen to the natural world around you. Ask yourself what, for example, does a door closing sound like. Why does a real one sound so different from a recorded one? What aspects or elements of the sound are missing from the recording?

Go out and listen to an audience clapping. Analyse the differences between them. No two people make the same clapping sound but there are identical elements: elements that clearly distinguish the live sound from the recorded one. Listen to the energy, dynamic range, impact, loudness, frequency range, cleanness, tonal character and also the room (or outdoor) response to the sound – the echo, reverberation and decay.

When you are doing A/B comparisons for yourself try not to put yourself in the ‘hot seat’. Think of yourself more as a bystander than a critic. The trick is in not concentrating too much, not trying too hard. Educating your ear in music or Hi-Fi quality is just like educating your palate in foods; it takes time, patience and a willingness to experiment and learn.

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1 extra free tip!

Clean your ears! – please don’t think us rude, but it can often be worth having your ears checked out to ensure they are functioning properly. It is not uncommon for someone to feel there is something missing in their system only to find the problem is with their hearing. There may be a simple solution that transforms your listening enjoyment so it shouldn’t be discounted as a potential upgrade!

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